smart guides are not working

[claudioc35364348]

For some reason, the smart guides have stopped working. Haven't done any changes and have updated the Illustrator too. Please help as its supper annoying.

[Jacob Bugge]

Claudio,

If no brighter suggestions appear, you may try the list and hope for one of the easy ones.

If things that should work simply refuse to (all possibilities exhausted including the A) - C) below (and carefully making sure you are performing (all) the needed things)), you may try (the relevant part(s) of) the list 1) - 6) below.

Sometimes, (certain) things may fail or stop working for no apparent reason. When the (other) possible reasons/cures fail to work, it may be some kind of (temporay or permanent) corruption, or even some inconvenient preference setting(s), which may be cured with something on the following list set up in an attempt to provide a catchall solution for otherwise unsolvable cases. It starts with a few easy and harmless suggestions 1) and 2) for milder cases, and goes on with two alternative ways 3) and 4) of resetting preferences to the defaults (easily but irreversibly and more laboriously but more thoroughly and also reversibly), then follows a list 5) of various other possibilities, and it ends with a full reinstallation 6). If no other suggestions work, or if no other suggestions appear, you may start on the list and decide how far to go and/or which may be relevant.

The following is a general list of things you may try when

A) The issue is not in a specific file,

B) You have a printer correctly installed, connected, and turned on if it is physical printer (you may use Adobe PDF/Acrobat Distiller as the default printer with no need to have a printer turned on, obviously you will need to specify when you actually need to print on paper), and

C) It is not caused by issues with opening a file from external media.

You may have tried/done some of them already; 1) and 2) are the easy ones for temporary strangenesses, and 3) and 4) are specifically aimed at possibly corrupt/inconvenient preferences); 5) is a list in itself, and 6) is the last resort.

If possible/applicable, you should save current artwork first, of course.

1) Close down Illy and open again;

2) Restart the computer (you may do that up to at least 5 times);

3) Close down Illy and press Ctrl+Alt+Shift/Cmd+Option+Shift during startup (easy but irreversible);

4) Move the folder (follow the link with that name) with Illy closed (more tedious but also more thorough and reversible), for CS3 - CC you may find the folder here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/preference-file-location-illustrator.html

5) Look through and try out the relevant among the Other options (follow the link with that name, Item 7) is a list of usual suspects among other applications that may disturb and confuse Illy, Item 15) applies to CC, CS6, and maybe CS5);

Even more seriously (this may be serious because you may need to restore plugins and whatnot afterwards if you have customized things), you may:

6) A) Uninstall (ticking the box to delete the preferences if applicable), B) run the Cleaner Tool (if you have CS3/CS4/CS5/CS6/CC), and C) reinstall. You may try without step B), but sometimes it is needed, because otherwise things may linger.

As it appears from this thread, it may be worth repeating this if it fails to help the first time:

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2283530

To uninstall:

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/search/index.cfm?loc=en_us&term=uninstall&cat=support&product=illustra...

Cleaner Tool:

http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cscleanertool.html

[FletchMT · Accepted solution]

This was very frustrating when it happened to me just today.

Disable "Snap to Point" and "Snap to Grid" in your view menu. This should fix it.

Be sure of course "View>Smart Guides" is enabled, obviously you've done that.

Go to Preferences>Smart Guides and be sure you have them set as you like, obviously you've done that.

[Russell Murphy]

I was having the exact same problem - after searching I ended up on this page.

I went through the menu items and discovered that 'Snap to Pixel' must be turned on, it didn't matter whether or not the other 'snap to...' choices were selected.

[justinaiskander]

THANK YOU!

[cValesa]

After over  an hour of frustration this quick fix worked. Thank you..

[bearcanrun]

I was having this problem too and with help of this answer and experimentation I found that 'snap to grid' is the one option that causes smart guides to disappear.

[AVWalker]

THANK YOU!

[inSane.Rosh]

Thank you! This 'quick fix' worked for me!

[Nola303553234ex6]

oh my god you're a saint. why is this the only place i can find the answer to this question!? thank you!!!

[Blendi]

thanks a lot cant believe i tried everything lost 1 hour and the solution was this simple

[VITOR_FOGACA3319]

I've Had the same issue, and I only could fix it by changing the "snap tolarence" in the preferences, to 1 pt, it was in 0 before and it would not work, no matter what I did. If someone else have the same issue as me, it's worth trying. Go to Edit>Preferences>Smart Guides, there u will find the option "snap tolerance", change it for whatever number besides 0pt that u like, for me, 1pt worked the best.

[abberdab · Accepted solution]

I was having this problem, too. EXTREMELY annoying. Turned out “Smart Guides” was checked in my “View” menu even though it wasn’t actually enabled. I selected the “Smart Guide” menu item to turn it “off” and it remained checked. I toggled it again, this time it became unchecked. I toggled it again — checked. And now it works. WHA. I can’t recall what all menu items were behaving similarly, but Smart Guides wasn’t the only item that was checked but not actually enabled. Seems to be a weird buggy thing.

[Jacob Bugge]

Thank you for sharing, abberdab, that is a significant finding that may spare others the possible inconvenience of (the more serious parts of) the list.

You may report it here:

Adobe Illustrator Feedback

[3der]

This happened to me too; Smart Guides is checked. Then selecting it keeps it checked. Then selecting it again turns it off. Then selecting it again turns it on and it actually works. Ridiculous bug!

[daved52346046]

Here is the real answer for those of you with illustrator cc 2019. I found this out by playing around. TURN OFF show bounding box. Also make sure you have smart guides TURNED ON and "Alignment Guides" Checked in preferences. This works for both text and objects! Once you do that it all snaps no problem!! So glad adobe tech could not figure that one out....geezz

[amjad1233]

For me this was life saver. Click on Gray Area of the artboard (outside the artboard).

Click the following button. And then press Command + U or Ctrl + U

[Maryam5E41]

thank you!!! fixed mine in 2 seconds.

[Helena Madeleine]

My setup is exactly the same as yours and several other guides I've followed but my issue remains. My smart guides will not appear and I don't know what to do. I've tried to restart Ai and my computer and nothing works 🙂 Is this a bug or have I missed something? 

[eladk71069931]

Show/ hide smart guides
Ctrl + U                 (PC)
Command + U      (MAC)

[Monika Gause]

Show/ hide smart guides
Ctrl + U                 (PC)
Command + U      (MAC)

By @eladk71069931

Nobody in this thread has issues with the shortcuts and also you have posted that already.

[eladk71069931]

Hi 
The message that was posted today mentioned "smart guides will not appear and I don't know what to do"
so the shortcuts I wrote will (likely) solve this problem, the smart guides will appear again 🙂

[Monika Gause]

If align to grid is turned on, try and turn it off.

Also: please describe in more detail: the Guides just don't appear? Is it only the shortcut that does not work?

[eladk71069931]

CMD + U 

[MetaDavis]

I have this issue too, using Adobe Illustrator 28.4.1. The 'Smart Guides' selection is no longer an option under guides. changing this in the settings makes no difference. Adobe, if it ain't broke, don't 'fix' it.